CBS News’ avowedly pro-Israel editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has reportedly abandoned the network’s standards on objectivity to go all in on promoting President Donald Trump’s deadly war against Iran.
“Buckle up,” a CBS News staffer told Zeteo. “Propaganda-palooza.”
The war is “Bari’s hardline Zionist wet dream come true,” another CBS insider told the outlet.
Just hours after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran on Saturday, Bari—a self-proclaimed “Zionist fanatic” who was handpicked by Trump-friendly billionaire David Ellison to lead CBS News—got to work cheerleading the military campaign, even as Iran retaliated against America’s allies in the Middle East, plunging the region into chaos.
She quickly flew her pro-Israel anchor, Tony Dokoupil, to Tel Aviv, Israel, before most of the region’s flights were grounded, and tapped him to anchor the weekend version of CBS Evening News.
During a Saturday night special on the war, Dokoupil sounded more like a White House surrogate than an objective news reporter as he repeated administration talking points and interviewed right-wing conspiracy theorist Douglas Murray, who is friends with Weiss.
“Even as Iran retaliates tonight, that era of repression may be over. There are no reports of American casualties this hour from Iranian air strikes,” Dokoupil said. “There are, however, celebrations in the streets of Tehran.”
A day later, six U.S. troops were killed in a retaliatory strike on Kuwait.
Dokoupil also interviewed Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad, who attacked New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani for criticizing the war. Weiss shared a clip of Alinejad’s remarks with a fire emoji.
She reposted a clip of Alinejad celebrating the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Saturday’s strikes.
CBS staff were outraged by her fire emoji post, which represented a network editor in chief expressing her political views about the New York mayor, apparently in violation of CBS News’ objectivity standards.
Two network sources told Zeteo that Weiss was “ramping up content” to target the progressive Muslim mayor.
“JFC,” or “Jesus f---ing Christ,” one CBS employee told Zeteo in response to Weiss’s fire emoji post.
The Daily Beast has reached out to CBS News for comment.
Others were angry with Dokoupil’s claims on Monday that Trump’s war in Iran somehow originated in the 1979 American embassy hostage crisis.
His historical overview completely ignored the 1953 coup against Iran’s prime minister, orchestrated by MI6 and the CIA to protect British oil interests and which entrenched the power of the shah.
“This is the craziest s--- I’ve ever seen,” a CBS News reporter said of Dokoupil’s package.
Weiss nevertheless retweeted Dokoupil’s “explanation” of the roots of Trump’s war, which aligned nicely with her own arguments back in June about why the U.S. should bomb Iran.
At the time, she appeared on Fox News arguing that Iran was “not just an existential threat to Israel,” but also an “existential threat to America.”
